Players drafted by the GM formerly known as Slippy have unanimously petitioned to have their team name changed from The Pink Slips to The Charity Stripes. "We feel that the color pink lacks the masculinity that this team embodies," said Arron Afflalo the nominated spokesperson. The notion is being taken into consideration.

The Shakedown: Getting your cake and eating it too but then going on a diet and being forced to chew on celery and rice crackers.

Outside of the big name superstars, there are few players better than Pau Gasol to build a team around. He has that all important C associated with his position, brings points, rebounds, assists and a few blocks while maintaining high FG% and most importantly FT%. He's like a poor man's Yao Ming except that he's not anything like Yao. And he's rich.

Paired up with Pau is Josh Smith. At 19 overall, he went a little high but its now or never in a 16 team league. Josh brings rebounds, a few steals and beaucoup blocks. Beaucoup? a hah hah. Michael Jordan est considéré comme le plus grand joueur de basketball de tous les temps. Jordan? Parlez vous francais? Um no.

Rounding out the Pink Slip core is Caron Butler. Butler slipped all the way back to the unlucky bottom drafters and while he was called a fluke by another gm, he's maintained a high number of steals and great FT% for several years. We're shoring up our small stats.

As the draft snake rears its ugly head, Slippy wonders where the heck is he going to put in a serviceable PG. Can you honestly believe that 30 picks later, a good PG will still be available? Cooler GM's show patience. Slippy grabs Roy the oft injured R.O.Y. He doesn't have the sheer gaudy assists that Slippy likes but does everything above average. Felton's FG% and TO's blow chunks and while a new offense may alleviate that, I'm looking to maintain the % cats.

Next is Shane Battier who fits in with Slippy's small stat fetish. He brings some 3's, stls, and with a new offense, maybe some assists while not hurting you too much anywhere else.

Andrew Bogut is next. He doesn't get small stats but might help in assists. His FT% sucks but he's a steadily improving dude, mate. Aside from that, he's a mediocre rebounder and scorer. We need depth at C and we don't want to be like Darth scraping the bottom of the barrell.

The Shakedown: 5 Championship Drive meets the Flip Saunders of Fantasy Basketball....call a TO Darth! Call a TO!

You painstakingly pour over a myriad of stats to come out with a ranking that balances a multitude of factors into a single number. Then you toss that aside and go for your man crush. Darth is has never been a master drafter. He could rival Kevin Mchale. His strength is in his ability to outstrip his opponents obsession over the details of fantasy basketball. Nash is a great guy to build around...if you draft at #5...luckily for Darth he didn't have to wait that long.

Sun Tzu said that if you strengthen everything, you become weak everywhere. Darth takes the words of the master to heart and grabs Joe Johnson whose solid numbers augment the godly small ball stats that Nash brings. Lucky too, that JJ doesn't cost as much as he does for the Hawks.

Antwan Jamison's history reaches back 2 years when Slippy said that AJ would win you the league and Darth said AJ sucks. Lucky for Darth (see a pattern here), he took pity on Slippy and his Okafor drafting ass and made the trade after which AJ exploded and added 3's to some impressive pts and reb numbers. AJ is a fixture on Darth's teams.

Manu is there because at that point he couldn't reach for anyone else. Ginny adds some 3's and hustle stats.

Maggette who? Darth told be he regretted grabbing this guy for Kaman. But he posed the question Dalembert or Gordon? The answer to that one was Maggette. Maggette will fill the scoring void left by Brand. The clippers are gutted so expect him to deliver the old lines adding decent reb, ast, stl and a few 3's. Kaman would have been good too considering Darth's frying a donut right now.

Darko. Darth drafted darko so that Jackattaq and Lazyberbs could post on his team's forum. Said posters will question Darth's choices on Darko's playing time and role saying that he'll be an allstar if he was the first option on offense and also the last option on offense. Darko brings blocks. With Jamison the only other big man, you need gaudy blocks.

When Slippy posed the question: How long is Adam Morrison going to be out? #1 said "2-4 weeks" for a torn ACL that was highly optimistic. So optimistic, I'd consider it deceptively so. Enter Walter Hermann. The big fantasy stud of the late season shows up on Darth's team to shoot the heck out of the ball. The team needs scoring depth and without Morrison and May, Hermann should get ample looks.

Al Harford. Scraping the bottom of the barrel yields a decent risk/ reward package not named Alonzo Mourning.

Darth picks Alonzo Mourning.

With memories of Matt Barnes brief glory days emblazoned in his mind, Darth grabs the mohawked maven. How Barnes will fit in an increasingly crowded team is anyones guess. Barnes brings 3's and pts which combine with JJ, Nash, Ginobli, and Maggette makes a whole lot of sense if you read between the lines and visualise the outcome.

Stuckey, Dampier, Antonio Daniels. In predraft huddles, Darth lectures Slippy on the perils of drafting injury guys. Dampier has a shoulder injury, Darth. The other slots are for Darth strategy of mobbing your team with lesser guys culled from the WW herd. mooooooooo!!!!!!

Darth is a small ball expert. Whether his domination in Assists, 3'st and TO (whoops!) will translate into a playoff berth will be one of the seasons storyline.

the Rapid Ralphie's GM Ralphie announced today that his team officially has Jason Terry on the trading block because he sees no chance for PT with Iguodola and Chris Paul logging heavy minutes. If anyone's interested, let me know- I need someone who can block shots and rebound and deliver a decent FG%.

The draft well, I think my first 5 choices all where guards. I kinda forgot that there are tons of goog G's out there, but not many C's. So I ended up with the likes of Haywood, Magloire, Garbajosa and Abdur- Rahim to deliver rebounds and blocks. So, as you can guess, your team has good chances to beat me in these categories. On the other hand, forget about scoring. I expect Iguodola to avg 40+ppg this year now that Iverson is gone and Dalembert ain't the best scorer. I got Hamilton and Gordon pretty cheap so I'm loaded with scoring guards. I don't need any guy to give me assists since I have Chris Paul, whom I expect to play a full season, 48+mpg averaging around 25+apg.

Great analysis by the way. Have to say I agree with everything on this one except I expect nothing out of Swift this year.

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You could be right but IMO the risk reward and flexibility if he bombs out is worth more to me than having a inconsisent low end producer that adds TO's and bad FT% for maybe a single rebound and 3 points.

You could be right but IMO the risk reward and flexibility if he bombs out is worth more to me than having a inconsisent low end producer that adds TO's and bad FT% for maybe a single rebound and 3 points.

i'm not sure why you guys are pontificating about your teams, i mean either way i'm going to win this league so it's a moot point. in fact you might as well drop everyone on your rosters and/or forfeit every week

i'm not sure why you guys are pontificating about your teams, i mean either way i'm going to win this league so it's a moot point. in fact you might as well drop everyone on your rosters and/or forfeit every week

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I can see alot of dreams are going to be ruined in the first couple of weeks. (cough) Warthog!

Slippy...that was a great rundown of my team...I think. I didn't understand half of it. That's ok though because I didn't know what I was doing drafting either. You'll have to splain' it to me later.

Are you saying I did poorly? I think Nash was a great choice. I'm very happy with it. I honestly don't see much difference in the top 10 guys. It just depends what kind of team you want to build. I really enjoy the threes, points, assists, and steals.

I have no idea what kind of team I have. But you know me...that never makes a bit of difference in the end.

i'm not sure why you guys are pontificating about your teams, i mean either way i'm going to win this league so it's a moot point. in fact you might as well drop everyone on your rosters and/or forfeit every week

I will keep quiet for awhile as the Silent Assassin will be under the radar knocking off one team after another until.....the injury bug riddles thru my team. After all how many times has Baron Dvais and T-Mac played more than 65 games in a season.??